Frankenstein Has Risen From the Grave
by C. L. Werner
Summary: Back from the dead, Dr. Heinrich von Frankenstein seeks revenge upon the creature that nearly killed him - Godzilla!
1. Default Chapter

Frankenstein Has Risen From the Grave  
  
By C. L. Werner  
  
Prologue  
  
The sleek steel-hued ship continued to slide through the icy water north of Japan. Owned by the powerful Shindo Group, the vessel was equipped for a variety of tasks. At present, however, it was being called upon to play the part of hunting hound.  
  
'What I do not understand,' said the captain of the ship to one of the scientists manning the massive 'ultra-Geiger' apparatus housed deep in the bowels of the ship, 'if this anomaly was discovered back in 1991, why has it not been investigated until now?'  
  
The scientist removed his glasses and regarded the captain. 'The events of 1991 were very chaotic. The rampage of the Ghidorah-creature, the demands of the Futurians, and the death of Mr. Shindo by Godzilla all helped to make this report fall in the cracks. We were desperate to stop the rampage of Wilson's Ghidorah, and satellites were trying to pick up any radioactivity in the Bering Sea that might indicate that Godzilla was indeed still beneath the ocean waters, despite Wilson's scheme.' The scientist smiled. 'The irregularity was discovered at that time, but the radiation was decided to be far too faint to be Godzilla. As it turned out, our own nuclear submarine found the monster instead.'  
  
'What do you think it is?' the captain asked, peering into the murky image that was being transmitted to the ship by an unmanned robotic mini- sub.  
  
'I think we shall find out very soon,' replied the scientist, following the captain's gaze. Both men watched as the lights of the sub suddenly began to shine from a corroded reef-like substance, only the lines were far too regular to be any natural formation. The scientist adjusted the sub's search pattern. The robot maneuvered around, sliding along the long, tube-like hull, catching the conical tower in its lamps, the rotted remains of a deck gun.  
  
'A German U-boat!' exclaimed the captain.  
  
'Yes,' agreed the scientist, equally astonished. 'But why is a sunken German submarine from WWII giving off radioactivity?'  
  
  
  
The towering skyscrapers of Osaka rose all around the young couple. Hans and Miranda Kraus had never been to Japan before and the two tourists were determined to enjoy themselves. Indeed, Japan had again become a healthy tourism destination since the decrease in monster rampages. True, there had been the terrible shock of the renegade Dr. Mafune's creations a year previous, but that disaster had hardly been limited to Japan. Whatever the reasons, the two young Germans were enjoying themselves greatly. They had already seen the sites in Tokyo, the Imperial Garden and Tokyo Tower, and now had decided to see some of the ancient feudal castles left in Osaka to round out their tour.  
  
The hour was late when the young couple began to make their way back to their hotel room. They made their way through the sparsely populated streets. It was with some surprise then that they found their path intercepted by a most curious figure. It was a Japanese man, shabbily dressed and somewhat dwarf-like; his back twisted and hunched over. The German couple stared with disgust at the man's malformed mouth, his broken display of jagged and blackened teeth. They began to circle around the man when the twisted creature surprised them yet again. He spoke to them, in German!  
  
'Kann sie mir hilfen?' the hunchback asked in guttural, crude tones.  
  
'How is that?' a puzzled Hans asked. The hunchback began to slink away, almost fearfully. His curiosity piqued, Hans pursued the dwarf, leaving his wife to watch him disappear around the corner of a fish monger's. It was the last she would ever see of her husband.  
  
Hans was almost running after the strange Japanese dwarf now. He was completely focused upon the enigmatic freak, unaware that the chase was taking him into a lonely back alley. It was with a degree of alarm that Hans realized that he was now alone with the strange Japanese. As the German tourist entered the alley, the dwarf stopped trying to avoid him. Turning and facing Hans.  
  
'You can help me,' the twisted creature said, his smile broadening. Hans did not have time to scream before the massive butcher's cleaver the dwarf pulled from its place of concealment behind a trashcan was swiping towards his neck.  
  
  
  
'Astounding,' agreed the politician as he watched the submarine break the surface. The robot mini-sub had returned to the depths, had attached massive balloons to the hull of the long-lost warship. The task of salvaging the U-boat had been too much for even the Shindo Group, so it was that the corporation had enlisted the aid of the Japanese government through the newly formed Crisis Control Intelligence, the CCI.  
  
'It is the U-754,' marveled the wizened German veteran standing beside the politician. 'After all these years…'  
  
'What specifically was the vessel's mission?' Katagiri asked the old German. The old Kriegsmarine officer's brow knitted as he considered the Japanese bureaucrat's question.  
  
'As I can recall, she was dispatched to conduct sensitive materials from Germany to the safekeeping of Japan. This was in late 1944, when it was obvious to everyone what the outcome of the European theater would be.'  
  
Katagiri stared again at the rotting vessel. What secrets were entrusted to you, he wondered? What did the Nazis consider so important that they risked a suicidal voyage beneath the Arctic ice?  
  
Whatever answers it contained, U-754 remained silent.  
  
  
  
The loathsome looking man crept down the deserted midnight streets. His strength was such that he barely felt the heavy burden slung over his twisted and bloated back. Wrapped in a heavy tarpaulin, any observer who happened to see the hunchback would hardly be able to tell the nature of his burden. They would not guess that it was the mortal remains of a German tourist, butchered with the sinister efficiency of an accomplished surgeon. Goke's master had taught his underling exactly what to do, and how to do it.  
  
Goke separated his chapped lips to allow his jagged teeth to leer in a grotesque smile. Ahead was the deserted warehouse, declared unsafe after one of the monster Godzilla's attacks had partially collapsed it. For many long years, no one had shown enough interest to rebuild the ruin, nor enough initiative to demolish it. Now, the building was home only to the vermin of Osaka. Vermin and one other inhabitant.  
  
Goke adjusted the weight carried on his shoulder and pulled open the heavy metal door. Chains and pulleys had once enabled men to open the door with ease, but such devices had rusted away over the years. It did not matter to the hunchback. To him, the heavy steel door, warped and blunted by the monster's wrath and the elements, was no more of a hindrance than a medicine ball should be to any athlete. Goke entered the darkness beyond the door and pushed the steel plate back into its place.  
  
The hunchback sulked through the vast ruin, twisted girders and shafts of metal strewn all around him, broken machinery and shattered glass crackling beneath his every footstep. The beady eyes of rats watched the murderer from the darkness, rodent lips smacking greedily as they caught the scent of freshly spilt blood. Goke ignored the spectators and with a last, furtive look over his shoulder, lifted a heavy manhole cover and descended into an even greater darkness.  
  
From the pit, the faint strains of an orchestral score drifted upwards, a selection from the work of Richard Wagner.  
  
  
  
'What have you found?' Katagiri made no pretense of concealing his impatience from the men who stood before him. The head of the CCI had not even waited for the team that had entered the old Nazi submarine to remove their heavy radiation suits. The three men looked at one another. At last, one of them strode forward. Each man was pale, sweating. But it had not been the radiation that had so affected them.  
  
'As near as we can tell, sir,' began the spokesman for the team, casting a nervous look at the huge rotting U-boat behind him. At considerable expense, the carcass of U-754 had been sent to a CCI facility in Fukuoka, cloaked in secrecy. Only the CCI and some of the higher members of Parliament knew what had become of the Shindo Group's find. 'It seems that the Germans were transporting all of their greatest scientific advances to Japan, trying to tip the scales in the Emperor's favor.'  
  
'Why is it radioactive?' demanded Katagiri. Japan had great reason to fear any thing tainted by radioactivity. First there had been the WWII bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then there had been the advent of Godzilla and the other horrible spawn of the atom that had followed him.  
  
'They were transporting a supply of heavy water, it appears. To try and help our own scientists along with our atomic weapons program. We did find some journals that may have been research along those lines. There are also disassembled V-2 and V-1 rockets inside the sub, as well as what appear to be the complete components of a ME-262 jet fighter. We have also found a number of blue-prints for even more ambitious weapons.'  
  
'Can you tell what killed the crew?' asked Katagiri, still obsessed by the thought of the radioactivity.  
  
'No, sir,' responded the spokesman. 'It may have been their filter system, an engine malfunction or perhaps the storage they used for their heavy water. I would lean towards the last, as the submarine is definitely showing signs of radiation throughout its decks.' The spokesman paused, licking his lips. 'We found the skeletons of the crew everywhere. They must have died horribly.'  
  
'Have you found anything else?' the question brought a frightened look into the eyes of the team members.  
  
'Yes, sir,' replied the spokesman. 'But you will have to send someone else in there to get it. None of us will touch the thing.'  
  
  
  
The Japanese hunchback dropped the tarpaulin sack down on the floor. For a moment, he let his eyes linger on the walls of the hidden room. They were riddled with coffin-like freezers and standing refrigerators. Cables snaked across the floor to crawl into the walls, leeching power from the city's electrical system. In the center of the room were several tables, their surfaces covered by beakers, bubbling tanks of liquid and bottled jars of chemicals and solutions. Other, more solid objects floated within many of the substances. Goke began to remove the gory remains of Hans Kraus and set them down on the only table that was devoid of apparatus. As he did so, the soft strains of orchestral music died, an unseen hand killing the phonograph. Scuttling, shuffling steps sounded from within the shadows. Goke grinned nervously as his master stepped into the feeble light.  
  
The man had been called a monster often enough in his life, but now he wore the shape of a gravesend horror. Charred blackened flesh clothed the man's body, as though lumps of charcoal had been blasted onto a naked skeleton. Grim eyes stared from a grinning skull, their lids burnt away. Clawed hands protruded from the man's heavy coat, as gaunt and withered as any cadaver's. When the man opened his mouth to speak, it was as if a wound opened in what passed for his face. Indeed, the lips had melted together in the same trauma that had reduced him to this sorry state. The man had been forced to use a scalpel to cut the melded flesh and allow his mouth to open once more. Still, the man realized that by all rights he should be dead. Any merely mortal being would have been. But Baron Heinrich von Frankenstein had not been mortal for quite some time.  
  
'Good, my friend,' the Baron's raspy rattle wheezed from his dry, desiccated form. 'Very splendid. This one was definitely of the Master Race.' Frankenstein examined the arms of Hans Kraus, his eyes staring at the thin delicate fingers with envy. 'A musician, or perhaps even a surgeon,' he considered. 'Yes, I shall have need of these.' Frankenstein nodded his head to the twisted creature lurking at his feet. Goke raised the whirring bone-saw and began to remove the hands from the arms of Hans Kraus.  
  
Later, the unwanted remains were removed to the warehouse above. The rats had proven very efficient garbage collectors.  
  
  
  
The young, blonde-haired man leaned over in his seat. The flight from Berlin to Tokyo was a long one and the young German was in need of conversation. The man in the seat next to him was much older, aged enough to be the grandfather of the blonde man.  
  
'You are Dr. Erich Reisendorf?' the younger man asked. The older man did not look up from the in-flight magazine he had been perusing since take- off.  
  
'Yes, and you are Dr. Johann Gildor,' commented the old scientist.  
  
'You know me?' the younger scientist said, startled.  
  
'I may be old, but I do keep in touch with things,' Dr. Reisendorf answered. 'Your field of study is one that interests me greatly. I make it my business to keep informed of who is doing what with it these days.'  
  
'It is a great honor to speak with you,' admitted Dr. Gildor. 'Why, you worked with him, during the war. I am shocked that a man of your standing should even know my name.'  
  
'Why should I not. You desecrated the graveyard at Aushwitz looking for traces of his work. Such notorious goings on are not exactly low-key.'  
  
Dr. Gildor looked downwards, ashamed. 'I thought that some good might come of it, some benefit to mankind.' Dr. Reisendorf looked up. The old scientist folded his magazine and turned in his seat to face his companion.  
  
'No good will ever come from his works,' Dr. Reisendorf stated. 'Evil begets evil. I worked with the man for two years at Aushwitz. Or, to put it more frankly, I spied upon him. The Nazis never trusted Heinrich von Frankenstein. With good reason as it turns out. He was not interested in their vision of a Master Race. True, he was intending to place rulers over the common, but the Master Race Frankenstein envisioned would be one of his own creation.'  
  
'If they knew this,' gasped Dr. Gildor, 'why was he allowed to continue his work?'  
  
'Can you not guess? The Fuehrer wanted to be a god, and Frankenstein could have provided him with the secret of immortality. Did you know that they found the remains of the original monster? It was discovered in a block of ice in Norway during the war. It was cut apart and shipped in secret back to Germany. I was reassigned after Aushwitz to study the monster's heart. Even a century later, it was still beating, even with three bullets inside of it!'  
  
'God in Heaven!' exclaimed Dr. Gildor. 'I have never heard this, nor read of it in any book.'  
  
'They kept it top secret, especially from him,' replied Dr. Reisendorf. 'Hitler wanted the secret of immortality, but not at the expense of placing Heinrich von Frankenstein in his place. Still, had it not been for my study of the monster's heart, I should never have been excluded from the Nuremberg trials. It seemed my head was wanted more for its information than its ability to fit a noose.' Dr. Reisendorf tapped a withered finger against his forehead.  
  
'What became of the heart?' asked Dr. Gildor.  
  
'It was taken away. SS men arrived one day in 1944 and took it away. I suspect now that it was shipped to Japan, like so many other secrets the Fuehrer did not want falling into Soviet hands.'  
  
'What makes you say that?'  
  
Dr. Reisendorf stared out the window of the plane. 'Why do you think the Japanese would send for the top Frankenstein researcher in Germany and the last-living man who worked with Heinrich von Frankenstein? All men long for the secret of immortality. The heart of the monster has been found. And it has been found in Japan.'  
  
  
  
In the darkness, something stirred. The comforting warmth had departed some time ago, but it had taken long days for its absence to be detected by the creature. Now its eyes snapped open, its limbs stirred. It had not moved in such a very long time, but it had not needed to. The warmth had fed it, had pulsed through its body. Now the warmth was gone. Once more the beast was called upon to leave its lair. To swim through the waters. To hunt.  
  
In the darkness, something emerged from the ocean floor. For an instant, the huge shape lingered over the depression that marked the former resting-place of U-754. Then, the shape withdrew into itself, as though pressing its body together. There was an instant of motion, then the shape was gone, just another ghost passing unseen through the darkness. 


	2. I - It Came From Beneath the Sea

Frankenstein Has Risen From the Grave  
  
By C. L. Werner  
  
Chapter I:  
  
It Came From Beneath the Sea  
  
Tension was threatening to tear the world apart. First there had been the build up of Allied forces in the Indian Ocean and Asia Minor in preparation for an all out campaign against terrorists and those who offered them refuge. Then had come the horrendous advent of the super-monster Bagan. Finally, had come the devastating attack of Russia's orbiting doomsday weapon called Perun's Axe. The governments of the world were in uproar. Some applauded Despot Ivan Vladimir Vasalov's decision to employ the solar powered particle beam, for it had apparently destroyed the monster before it could turn its grim attention to more populous regions. Others decried the use and very existence of the weapon as criminal, employing inflammatory words like 'holocaust' and 'genocide' in their descriptions of the terrible device.  
  
With such uncertainty straining relations across the globe, the Navy of the United States was on its highest level of alert. The nuclear-powered submarine Sea Hawk had been recalled from duties elsewhere and sent to the Sea of Japan, within close striking range should things turn ugly with China or North Korea. It was, of course, a secret mission, for the President had no desire to make either the Chinese or the Koreans nervous about an armed presence in their vicinity.  
  
Commander Pete Mathews reviewed his largely unfocused orders. The politicians had yet to clearly define what they thought to accomplish in the region, indeed, every passing hour the attitude in Washington and other capitals seemed to change. Mathews had a bad feeling about this uncertain deployment of his ship and his crew. In the mid-Pacific, he discovered that he had good reason to be concerned.  
  
The submarine was rocked as if by a tidal wave, despite the many fathoms of water between the sub and the surface. Red warning lights replaced the normal illumination within the sub and klaxons began to sound. Commander Mathews barked orders to his crew, ordering them to secure bulkheads against any breeches in the hull. Almost at once a status report was being read back to him by the chief engineer. Mathews did not like what he was reading.  
  
'What the devil happened?' the Commander growled as he mentally calculated the force required to cause such damage to his ship. 'Did we hit an underwater mountain?' It was impossible, but it was the only thing that he could think of.  
  
'No, whatever struck us was not a fixed object,' responded the engineer.  
  
'What then? A whale?' Commander Mathews considered that unlikely possibility. 'Perhaps that creature of Dr. Mafune's that is unaccounted for?' Again, he was forced to concede that either event would have first been heralded by radar contact.  
  
'Sir, it could have been the man in the moon, from what we know,' the engineer replied. 'I think that we will get a better picture of what happened when we examine the outside of the ship.'  
  
'Well, with all of this damage, we certainly won't be doing the US Navy any good in the Sea of Japan,' Commander Mathews sighed. 'Helmsman, change our heading. We're going back to the ship yard in San Francisco.'  
  
In the dark, nighted depths of the sea, the submarine slowly came about, heading off in exactly the opposite direction. Unblinking eyes regarded the submarine as it moved away with the hungry look of a predator. The beast had sensed the warmth emanating from the ship and had at once attacked, greedy for the life-giving energy it sensed within. Its powerful appendages had wrapped about the hull, grasping it in a brief, crushing embrace. But it had not understood the massive propellers whirring behind the ship. The tips of its tendrils had snaked about the props and been instantly severed. The shock and pain had caused the beast to at once release its prey and flee a safe distance.  
  
Now, it would study this strange object, try to understand how it had been able to injury the beast. It was the first thing it had ever encountered that pulsed with the warmth and the sea monster was not about to allow it to escape. No, it would follow the strange fish, study it. Then, when it was certain that it would not be able to harm it again, the beast would strike. And feed.  
  
'Amazing,' gasped Dr. Gildor, his blue eyes focused on the pulsating mass of flesh lying within a large aquarium. 'How can it really live without a body?' Dr. Reisendorf cast an amused look at the younger scientist.  
  
'For one so versed in the atrocities of Heinrich von Frankenstein,' the old scientist mused, 'you don't seem to know too much about what his work could do. I assure you that I saw his accomplish things with the human body that were far more amazing than this.' The old German's eyes clouded over with sudden darkness. 'And far more horrible.'  
  
'Why is it so large?' interrupted the dark-suited Japanese politician standing behind them. Katagiri had taken precious time from his meetings with the Japanese security council to meet the two specialists from Germany. 'I understood that the heart of the Frankenstein monster was essentially a normal human heart. This thing is as large as an entire human body.' Katagiri suspected that he already knew why the heart had become so large. He decided to voice his opinion. 'Has it reacted to the radiation within the U-boat?'  
  
Dr. Reisendorf became thoughtful. 'When I studied it in Berlin, it was indeed, as you say, of normal human size, though it still bore many uncanny and unnatural properties. For instance, its ability to live on without any manner of sustenance, like a living perpetual motion engine. I believe that you are correct, Mr. Katagiri, the radioactivity is the only possible explanation for the growth.'  
  
Katagiri paused, considering the elderly German doctor's words. When he spoke, it was in a guarded, almost hesitant voice. 'Dr. Reisendorf, as I understand it, radiation has always proved harmful to humans.' Katagiri gestured toward the beating, giant heart. 'Yet it has actually had a non-degenerative effect upon Frankenstein's heart. Do you imagine that, if the secret of why this is so could be discovered...'  
  
'Why, yes!' exclaimed Dr. Gildor, seizing upon Katagiri's hypothesis. 'If we could unlock the secret of the heart, then we would be able to use that knowledge to help countless victims of radiation poisoning!'  
  
'Yes,' agreed Katagiri somberly. 'In Japan alone there are tens of thousands who have suffered from the effects of radiation. The aftermath of Godzilla's attacks is terrible and his blood poisons any ground it falls upon, or any person who comes into contact with it.'  
  
Dr. Reisendorf shook his head and removed his glasses. He gestured toward the giant heart. 'This thing was created by Frankenstein,' he stated. 'No good can ever come from anything that madman touched.'  
  
'But this was created by Victor von Frankenstein,' Dr. Gildor pointed out. 'What you say may be true about Heinrich von Frankenstein's work, but this is an entirely different matter.'  
  
'Is it?' asked Dr. Reisendorf in an almost inaudible whisper. 'Can you be so certain that it is not the same thing?'  
  
Dr. Reisendorf would not elaborate on the comment, nor explain the haunted look that had entered his eyes.  
  
'Lower the pile,' Dr. Otani ordered. The technician in the Ogasawara command center obeyed the command and lowered the glowing atomic pile. It was the second day that Godzilla had failed to appear for his feeding. It was a bad time for the monster to go missing. There were many in Japan who were counting upon the monster to come to their rescue and destroy the beast Bagan when and if that terrible demon creature decided to attack them. Dr. Otani was somewhat suspicious about the way the government was handling the matter. It seemed to him that they were positive Bagan would threaten Japan.  
  
'Shall we try again tomorrow?' asked the technician. 'Maybe he just isn't hungry.'  
  
'Yes, we'll try again tomorrow,' agreed Dr. Otani. Since the awakening of Bagan, and her horrible vision of the beast, Miki Saegusa had been unable to contact Godzilla, her disturbed state interfering with her natural empathy with the monster. Again, the timing could not be worse.  
  
Dr. Otani looked over at the main panel of television monitors. Each of them showed a different section of the island. Mothra was gone, probably dead from the sketchy reports coming out of Afghanistan. Rodan was still half-dead from the battle in Tokyo. The larva Mothra was being tended by Anguirus, a circumstance that had existed ever since the elder Mothra's departure. Now, Godzilla was gone too. If the JSDF came here looking for a way to stop this Bagan creature, there was little Monsterland could offer them. Gorosaurus would not last very long against a creature that had defeated Mothra, and Baragon was far more likely to eat everyone rather than save them from the demon.  
  
Yes, Godzilla had chosen a most disturbing time to decide to go wandering.  
  
The huge shape slithered through the sea. It could sense the Sea Hawk moving ahead of it. Briefly the monster considered attacking the tempting morsel. But it restrained itself. On the very periphery of its sense it could detect an even greater warmth somewhere ahead of it. Perhaps the strange warm fish was returning to its school, unaware that it was drawing a predator into the fold.  
  
The Devil Fish considered these things. No, it would follow the warm fish back to the greater warmth it detected. Then it would feed.  
  
Dimly, the Devil Fish detected a spot of warmth somewhere behind it. It was much greater than that of the fish it was chasing, but insignificant beside the immense warmth the fish was leading it too. The Devil Fish instantly rejected the thought that it might attack this new warmth. The glowing energy it detected ahead was far too tempting.  
  
The immense octopus continued onwards, following the Sea Hawk, unaware that it in turn was being followed as well.  
  
Dr. Gildor was working late in the lab, completing his preliminary study of the monster's heart. Dr. Reisendorf, by no means an energetic man, had left hours ago and even the determined Japanese researchers like Dr. Kawaji and Dr. Togami had left. It was just him and the heart now. If the German was honest with himself, he would have admitted that it was somehow unnerving to be alone in the same room with the enormous organ. At times, even he would admit that there seemed to be something almost supernatural about the thing.  
  
Dr. Gildor was still looking over his notes when he became aware that he was no longer alone. Two thuggish looking Japanese men were standing in the doorway of the room. One of the two men held a gun in his hands. The other produced a cloth and a bottle.  
  
'Stay still, Doc,' the man with the gun snarled. The other thug advanced upon Dr. Gildor. The German made to defend himself, but the thug with the gun gestured menacingly.  
  
'We were told to bring you back alive,' he said. 'That doesn't mean I can't put a bullet in your leg. It won't kill you, but it'll hurt like Hell.'  
  
Dr. Gildor resigned himself to his fate. The other thug placed the cloth against the German's mouth and nose. The scientist tried to pretend and fake the effects of the anesthesia drenching the cloth, but the thug knew his business and kept the cloth in place so long that Dr. Gildor had to breath. He took in a lung full of the noxious fumes and was almost instantly unconscious. The last thing his dimming eyes could see were two more thugs wheeling away the huge tanks that contained the heart of the Frankenstein monster.  
  
It was night in San Francisco when the nuclear submarine Sea Hawk returned to its port. Indeed, aside form the assorted military bases, the once great city was depopulated. The terrible accident with the atomic cannon during the attack of the monster Anguirus had effectively destroyed the city, irradiating much of it, poisoning both land and air with its atomic legacy. It unnerved the crew of the submarine every time they returned to the still operating naval base. The city was still largely intact, but no lights twinkled in the darkened buildings and no life stirred on the empty hill-side streets. It was a ghost town of the 21^st century, a lesson to the rest of the world that no place was immune from the shadow of calamity.  
  
Commander Mathews emerged from the conning tower of the submarine and stared long and hard at the hull of his ship. He could not believe the eerie sight of the strangely scarred surface of the submarine. Everywhere there were great saucer-shaped discolorations, where the black paint had been eaten away, the metal beneath scraped and savaged.  
  
'What in God's name happened?' Commander Mathews wondered aloud. As if in answer to his question, there was a disturbance in the water of San Francisco Bay in the vicinity of Alcatraz Island. The naval commander watched as a huge dark object surged from the foam. Long, snake-like tendrils whipped into the night air. The huge form sped across the bay, reaching the once populous wharf. The beast surged upwards as it struck the shoreline, slithering onto the deserted piers, crushing the neglected wooden structures beneath its massive weight.  
  
The Devil Fish could feel the radiation all around it, basking in the poisonous energy just as a lizard beneath the early morning sun. The mammoth octopus began to soak the warmth into its skin. The beast lashed out with its tentacles, pulling apart those structures nearest it, feeding the rubble into the beak-like maw hidden beneath its body. The mollusk did not understand that its very presence in the city was enough to feed it the life-giving radiation. Its primitive mind still related food with the act of eating, and so it attempted to consume the structures around it. But radioactive or not, wood and stone and steel were not compatible with the Devil Fish's digestion. The octopus turned its alarmingly keen eyes around, looking for more edible objects.  
  
After some time, the Devil Fish focused its vision upon the glittering lights of the naval base and the small figures scurrying about the shipyard. In its world of perpetual darkness, light and motion had always indicated food. Hungrily, the giant Devil Fish oozed towards the alerted navy base.  
  
Dr. Gildor awakened in darkness. He was seated in a chair, of that much he was certain. He tested his arms, finding them unbound. The young German scientist began to rise from his seat, but a powerful hand pushed downwards on his shoulders, forcing him back into his seat.  
  
'You, stay,' growled a twisted Japanese hunchback, standing just behind the straight-backed chair.  
  
'You must forgive Goke's rudeness,' a calm, modulated voice said from the shadows. 'I am afraid that it is quite necessary that you remain where you are, for the time being.' Dr. Gildor could sense rather than see a thin form moving within the darkness.  
  
'Who are you?' the German scientist asked.  
  
'Can you not guess?' laughed the voice in the shadows. 'Do not tell me the great Dr. Gildor, Germany's foremost expert on the works of Baron von Frankenstein is a complete moron. If that is the case, then I am afraid that I have absolutely no use for you whatsoever.'  
  
'Heinrich von Frankenstein!' gasped Dr. Gildor. It was impossible. The infamous war criminal had to be dead. Every indication was that he had perished while working for a Japanese terrorist group called the Red Bamboo in 1993.  
  
'That will do, for now,' replied the cold, modulated voice.  
  
'Why did you kidnap me?' demanded Dr. Gildor. 'Why did you steal the heart from the CCI labs?'  
  
'My friends in the Japanese Yakuza have long owed me favors for the rather unorthodox surgical procedures they have asked me to perform for them.' A pair of withered hands, like blackened tree-limbs, emerged from the shadows. 'Though I must rely upon Goke to act as my hands, these days.  
  
'As for stealing the heart, if it is not my property, than to whom may it be said to properly belong? Is not my claim on much firmer ground than any other?'  
  
'You did not answer my question, why did you have me abducted?' There was a dry, cackling laugh from the darkness.  
  
'You have a reputation for being one of the most skilled surgeons in all of Europe, and your knowledge of my work is unrivalled, however much that preoccupation may have cost you in social circles.' There was again a suggestion of movement and a light snapped on. Dr. Gildor could see a large box-like object shrouded by a heavy black cloth.  
  
'Under my direction, Goke is a very capable surgeon. But he is only so under my direction. I have need of a surgeon who understands what he is doing without being told what and why at every step of the game.'  
  
'You intend some new outrage with the heart!' accused Dr. Gildor.  
  
'In time, Doctor,' the voice from the darkness responded. 'First there is another task which you will perform for me. Don't worry, I shall tell you exactly what you need to do before we start.'  
  
Dr. Gildor watched in horror as the black shroud was torn away, revealing a large water-filled tank. Floating in the midst of the murky water was a human body. As if that was not enough, it was a body that Dr. Gildor recognized from his many years of study. It was impossible, but the body floating in the tank was that of Heinrich von Frankenstein. Not the hundred-year old man he should now be, if he were alive, but the healthy thirty-year old that had been the fiend of the Nazi Reich.  
  
'God in Heaven!' Dr. Gildor gasped.  
  
'Yes, it is a very remarkable piece of work, don't you think,' the voice from the shadows stated. 'My mind and Goke's hands built it, pieced together over the course of some five years. In fact, the hands were not added until a few days ago.'  
  
'It is horrible,' muttered Dr. Gildor as he began to understand just what it was that he was looking at.  
  
'Now, now,' protested the voice, 'I think it is a very good likeness. Much better than this one.' The figure strode into the light, a charred, blackened skeleton of a man, so loathsome in visage as to no longer look human. Dr. Gildor screamed as Heinrich von Frankenstein stared at the young German with his lidless eyes.  
  
'Do compose yourself, Dr. Gildor,' the Nazi renegade scolded. 'You must be in top form when you remove my brain from this desiccated husk and place it within my new body,' Frankenstein rapped his blackened claw against the glass. 'Succeed and I shall teach you things all the books in the world could never reveal to you. Fail, and I have given Goke leave to make your death as unpleasant as possible.  
  
The flayed flesh of Frankenstein's face puckered into something remotely resembling a smile. 'You have a fine mind within that head of yours. I am certain that you will not disappoint me.' 


	3. II - The Beast Must Die!

Frankenstein Has Risen From the Grave  
  
By C. L. Werner  
  
Chapter II:  
  
The Beast Must Die!  
  
Interpol agent Murakoshi watched as the CCI operatives and Japanese special police scrambled about the damaged laboratory. Truly, there was no real reason why Interpol should be concerned with this break-in. There was no hint of international crime, this could just as easily be a strictly Japanese problem. Still, one word had drawn Murakoshi from a stakeout of a suspected Chinese Triad opium-smuggling operation to the ravaged lab. That word was the name of a dead man.  
  
Frankenstein.  
  
Following the terrible rampage of the cyborg monster Gigan, there had been a serious, multi-national effort to destroy the notorious terrorist group Red Bamboo. Several of the Japanese communists had been aprehended. A few had a very interesting story to tell. Years earlier, Red Bamboo had found the wanted Nazi war criminal Dr. Heinrich von Frankenstein hiding in the darkest jungle of Africa. They had formed an alliance with Frankenstein, and brought both the Nazi and his horrific creation, a brutish amalgim of giant animals called the Ginko, to a hidden base in the Kuri Islands. The mad scientist had thought to lure Godzilla to the island, intending to have his Ginko kill the reptile and then harvest Godzilla's body to make his own abomination even more powerful.  
  
It was a fantastic story, but one which had been verified. The remains of both a secret facility and the immense carcass of the Ginko had indeed been found. The pieces of the Ginko had been destroyed. The Red Bamboo men had insisted that Dr. Frankenstein had been killed by Godzilla, blasted by the monster's atomic fire. That seemed to put an end to the matter.  
  
Now, the name of Frankenstein had again appeared in connection to crime in Japan. Murakoshi wondered if perhaps the Red Bamboo was again at work, pursuing its vision of a communist Japan.  
  
'I still fail to see how this break-in is of any concern to Interpol,' stated Katagiri, his voice oily and smooth.  
  
'As you know, there is some reason to believe that, prior to their seizure of Gigan, the Red Bamboo had recruited escaped Nazi war criminal Dr. Heinrich von Frankenstein for the express purpose of creating giant monsters for them,' Murakoshi responded. He did not much care for the CCI official, and made no pretense of hiding that distaste. 'The Red bamboo leadership has never been apprehended and they may still have access to Frankenstein's knowledge. Can you safely assure me that they would not be able to find some terrible use for the heart of the original Frankenstein monster? A purpose that would put not only Japan but the entire region in jeopardy?'  
  
Katagiri laughed. 'Don't be absurd. The idea that anyone could use the heart as the first stepping stone in creating a giant monster is ridiculous! There is no one living who could do such a thing.'  
  
'Don't be so sure,' interrupted Dr. Reisendorf. The old German scientist had been notified of the break-in, but had only arrived a few short moments ago. He had listened quietly to the exchange between Murakoshi and Katagiri.  
  
'You think that you missing colleague, Dr. Gildor, might have the knowledge to do such a thing?' asked Murakoshi. 'Perhaps he was not abducted, perhaps he was actually in league with the Red Bamboo.'  
  
'No, Dr. Gildor is the pre-eminent Frankenstein researcher, but even he knows only a small fraction of what that madman had discovered. To do what you suggest would be far beyond him, if he was taken for such a purpose, then his kidnappers are going to be gravely disappointed.' Dr. Reisendorf shook his head. 'There is only one man who could put the heart to any use.'  
  
'Who would that be?' asked Katagiri, before his Interpol antagonist could.  
  
'Frankenstein himself,' the German replied matter-of-factly. Both Japanese men stared at the scientist with open mouths.  
  
'But he is dead,' protested Murakoshi. 'The Red Bamboo terrorists we captured have stated time and again that Godzilla killed Frankenstein with his atomic breath.'  
  
'Did you see a body?' Dr. Reisendorf said, a gleam behind his eye-glasses. 'Did anyone?'  
  
'Nobody could survive such a thing,' Katagiri declared.  
  
'No normal man, surely,' agreed Dr. Reisendorf. 'But Heinrich von Frankenstein was no normal human being.'  
  
'What do you mean?' Murakoshi asked, a strange and terrible feeling growing within him.  
  
'I worked in close contact with Frankenstein at Aushwitz,' Dr. Reisendorf began, his voice low and confidential. 'He made a few mistakes, let a few things slip while I was with him. Used expressions that were out-of-date, mannerisms that were unusual for a twentieth century man, even a Nazi.' Dr. Reisendorf took a deep breath. 'Gentlemen, I am convinced that Dr. Heinrich von Frankenstein was not a descendent of Baron Victor von Frankenstein. He is Baron Victor von Frankenstein!'  
  
'A very satisfactory surgery, Dr. Gildor,' Heinrich von Frankenstein said, staring at the image in the full-length mirror. The face and body that stared back at him were those of his younger self, recreated by pain-staking surgery and bone manipulation. It was as if the long years hiding in the jungles of Africa had been stripped away. The sunken cheeks and long, hawk-like nose, the slender hands, all were exact replicas of Frankenstein's long discarded natural body. Twice before, first in 1847 and later after World War I, Frankenstein had been called upon to discard a body that had become too injured or elderly to serve him. Someday he would find a way to prevent his bodies from aging. Then he would truly become immortal, and be removed from the necessary evil of temporarily taking on assistants and undergoing the always dangerous transfer of his brain from one body to another.  
  
'You should rest,' Dr. Gildor protested, taking hold of Frankenstein's arm and leading him back towards his bed. The Nazi pulled away.  
  
'I am quite fine, I assure you, though your concern is most touching,' sneered Frankenstein. 'But we have much to do before I can feel whole once more.' Frankenstein walked across the dimly lit room, past the freezers and tables. He placed his hands against the cool glass of the over-sized aquarium, his pale eyes focused upon the mound of pulsing flesh floating within.  
  
'I understand why you brought me here, but why did you steal the heart?' Dr. Gildor asked. Frankenstein turned and faced his new assistant.  
  
'You have healed my body, Dr. Gildor,' the mad scientist stated. 'Now it is time to heal my soul. Godzilla came very close to killing me. I do not appreciate that.'  
  
'But that creature is dead, it is his offspring ...' Dr. Gildor began. Frankenstein cut him off.  
  
'The sins of the father pass down to the son,' Frankenstein stated. 'I will have my vengeance, and if the recipient of choice is not to be had, then I shall strike upon what I can.' Frankenstein looked over at the lurking figure of Goke, the hunchback's eyes gleaming with excitement.  
  
'Yes, and you shall have your vengeance as well, my friend.' Frankenstein returned his attention to the disembodied heart. 'Goke was a perfectly normal man, once. The radioactive legacy of Godzilla made him what you see now. He has helped me because I can give him the power to destroy the creature that made him what he is.' Frankenstein walked over to a large shrouded tank, identical to that which had housed his new body.  
  
The Nazi withdrew the veil, revealing a huge, hulking body, its skin the greenish hue of a rotting corpse, its face twisted and scarred. The head was almost square, its lantern-jaw jutting forward almost like an ape's. Like Frankenstein's body, this too had been built from murdered Germans.  
  
'Of course, the choice parts were used to recreate my own image, but I think the leftovers proved quite useful,' Frankenstein gloated, showing off his creation. Dr. Gildor stared at the horrible monstrosity. 'I assure you that I have enough of the Red Bamboo's so called elixir to make a very interesting creation. The heart of my original creature will provide this creature with more power than I could have hoped for. As for the brain, Goke is more than willing to trade his broken shape for this one. All in the name of vengeance.'  
  
The sound of heavy weapons fire shattered the night. Tracer rounds fired from rail guns streamed across the darkness, impacting harmlessly against the bulk that slithered into the Navy base. Strike jets dived towards the hideous Devil Fish, but even their missiles were without apparent effect. The radioactivity surging through the beast's body disrupted the onboard guidance systems, causing the deadly projectiles to veer in a chaotic fashion, impacting sometimes hundreds of yards from their original target.  
  
The Devil Fish paid little notice to the bullets and bombs crashing against its glistening mollusk hide. The poisonous radiation surging through its body was repairing any damage almost the instant it was caused. No, the giant octopus was more concerned with its imagined hunger. Tentacles dozens of meters long whipped about the military base, catching fleeing trucks and screaming sailors, anything that moved. The Devil Fish puled its catch back to its body, the tentacles slithering beneath its bulk and the beaked maw hidden at the center of the ring of tentacles.  
  
Suddenly, a tremendous roar drowned out the continuing barrage of weapons fire. The Devil Fish did not react, its body incapable of hearing any sound, its ability to sense radioactivity overwhelmed by the wasteland of San Francisco. Blueish flame shot across the waters of San Francisco Bay, impacting against the mollusk's body in a spray of sparks. The Devil Fish turned towards the source of the attack, its tentacles releasing those victims it had yet to consume. A mammoth shape waded forward, emerging from the darkness. Godzilla's reptilian eyes focused upon the rampaging Devil Fish and a low growl emerged from his scaly mouth.  
  
The Devil Fish slithered forward even as a second blast of atomic fire shot from Godzilla's mouth and struck the beast's body. The giant octopus paused on the very lip of the Navy shipyard, remaining unmoving as Godzilla's flame bathed its moist form. The Devil Fish waited until the attack abated, absorbing the radioactive energy of Godzilla's attack, feeding off the very power meant to destroy the mollusk. Then, as Godzilla let his fiery assault die away, the huge octopus dropped into the water.  
  
Godzilla's eyes scanned the dark surface of the Bay for any sign of his foe. Long moments passed and the weapons fire from the shore died off as the order to stand down was issued. Silence reigned as Godzilla searched for any sign of the Devil Fish.  
  
All at once, the huge reptile was aware of a vice-like grip surrounding his legs. Godzilla roared as he was pulled beneath the water. The Devil Fish's tentacles were wrapped about Godzilla's lower limbs, their razor-sharp suckers digging into the reptile's scaly flesh. The giant octopus' cold, human-like eyes glared at Godzilla hungrily and the monster forced its body closer towards Godzilla, its beak-like maw snapping in anticipation.  
  
Godzilla struggled, trying to rip the beast from his body. The tentacles were dug in too well and each effort to remove them brought waves of incredible pain surging through Godzilla's body. Then, the Devil Fish's main mass pulled itself against Godzilla's chest and the beak made contact with Godzilla's flesh. The snapping maw closed about Godzilla, ripping a huge chunk of meat from the reptile monster.  
  
A scream of incredible pain tore apart the night as Godzilla broke the surface. Pain, such pain as he could only dimly remember from his battle with the aggregate Destoroyah, now surged through Godzilla's every nerve. And for Godzilla, pain was power. The reptile's hands closed about the Devil Fish's body and with a swift, tearing motion, the reptile pulled the mollusk from his body, hurling the giant octopus far into the bay. A huge, weeping wound seeped blood from a hole in Godzilla's chest while hundreds of sucker-shaped injuries added to the monster's distress. Godzilla roared his fury at this thing that had tried to devour him, a stream of golden fire steaming the area of bay that had received the hurtling form of the Devil Fish.  
  
But the radioactive octopus was not there. Already, the torpedo-like shape of the monster was jetting away from San Francisco and Godzilla. The Devil Fish's primitive mind was in chaos, its digestive system in turmoil as it absorbed the meat it had taken from Godzilla. The mutated flesh was having a metamorphic effect on the mollusk, and the Devil Fish's every cell was in agony as the change consumed them. With its animal instincts, the octopus tried to escape the pain ravaging its form, but it could not escape from the corruption it had allowed into its own form. So, the giant octopus continued to hurtle through the midnight sea, its body twisting and changing with every league it travelled.  
  
Godzilla waited for a time for any sign that his enemy would reappear. When it did not, the mammoth dinosaur mutation waded back towards the deep water, swimming away from the desolated city, beginning his pursuit of the beast that had injured him, determined to have its life as compensation for the pain it had dealt him.  
  
'What shall we do with his body?' Dr. Gildor asked. Frankenstein wiped his bloodied hands against the stained lapels of his lab coat and glanced over at his new assistant.  
  
'We'll take Goke's old form upstairs later,' the Nazi scientist told the young German. 'I have found the rats here to be very efficient at disposing of rubbish.' Dr. Frankenstein returned his gaze to the sickly sight of the disembodied brain lying in a pan on the table. The scientist studied the organ for a moment and then picked up a glistening scalpel.  
  
'What are you doing?' Dr. Gildor gasped as Frankenstein put the scalpel against the brain and began to cut away at the frontal lobe.  
  
'Performing a lobotomy,' replied the Nazi, almost casually. 'Much easier this way, I assure you. You don't have the skull getting in the way.'  
  
'But why?' demanded Dr. Gildor, horrified by what he was seeing.  
  
'What?' asked Frankenstein, momentarily absorbed by his surgery. 'Well, we don't really want a fifty-meter tall Goke running around, do we? It would be much better to have a less intelligent but far more manageable creature than one that has its own complex thinking process. I will just cut away Goke's personality before we put him in his new home.'  
  
'It's monstrous!' exclaimed Dr. Gildor. Frankenstein focused a withering glare on his assistant.  
  
'I find your morality becoming most tedious, Dr. Gildor,' the mad scientist stated. 'There is no room in science for compassion. The end result justifies the measures employed to achieve it.' Frankenstein let his gaze stray to the discarded, butchered body of the hunchback. 'Besides, what is one Japanese, more or less?'  
  
Dr. Gildor ignored the Nazi's remark and instead looked at the huge form that loomed before the scene of the surgery. They had started the growth process of the massive cadaver the night before, a steady drip of the Red Bamboo elixir into the body's veins. Already, it had quadrupeled in size. Soon, Frankenstein assured him, it would be time to install the heart that still throbbed away within its tank. Goke's brain would also receive a steady infusion of the elixir until it too was large enough to be housed within the massive body. Then, the completed beast would be given life.  
  
'I shall call him Prometheus,' Frankenstein had declared. 'For he shall bring to my enemies the fires of destruction!' 


	4. III - The Revenge of Frankenstein

Frankenstein Has Risen From the Grave  
  
By C. L. Werner  
  
Chapter III:  
  
The Revenge of Frankenstein  
  
The massive creature slithered through the waves, incapable of understanding the tremendous changes ravaging its body. Its once moist skin was hardening, its once elastic body becoming too tough and scaly to perform as it once had. The Devil Fish surged upwards, up from the black depths of the sea to the bright sunlight of the surface. As the huge mollusk broke the waves, its eyes focused upon a nearby ship. Hunger still filled the creature, and though it detected no trace of the warmth emanating from the ship, the vessel was moving and to the Devil Fish, movement indicated prey.  
  
A scaly tentacle emerged from the foamy, troubled sea. Even as those on the deck of the ship screamed and pointed at the massive limb, a second tentacle wrapped itself about the prow of the ship. A third and fourth struck out, wrapping about the vessel in a crushing embrace. The Devil Fish pulled its main bulk from the disturbed sea, its evil eyes scouring the deck of the ship, focusing upon those small fleeing figures. The tentacles snaked about the ship, striking anything that moved, fastening upon men and women with razor-sharp suckers. The tentacles whipped back to the main body, placing their victims within the beak-like maw beneath the giant octopus' body. As the cruel beast fed, surges of radioactive energy coursed through its body, rippling about its scaly body like chained lightning. The radiation made the paint on the ship's hull bubble and catch flame. Its effect upon those on the ship was even more horrific.  
  
The Devil Fish let the surge of atomic energy escape its body, easing its pain. Then, a blast of even more powerful nuclear power struck the dying vessel. The ship exploded upon the impact of the searing blue flame, casting shrapnel across the waves. The Devil Fish was lost within the resulting ball of flame and fire.  
  
Godzilla roared lowly, stalking forward to see what had become of his adversary. The monster king had followed the hideous mollusk from San Francisco to this point in the mid-Pacific, determined to end its rapacious predation and avenge the injuries it had inflicted upon him. Godzilla watched as the flames from the ship slowly condensed, becoming nothing more than a slick of fire upon the rolling waves.  
  
Suddenly, from the depths, the huge shape of the Devil Fish erupted, its glistening tentacles wrapping about Godzilla's reptilian hide, digging into his scaly flesh with razor-sharp suckers. The Devil Fish pulled its main mass upwards, glaring at Godzilla with its eerily human eyes. Massive horns now sprouted from above the Devil Fish's eyes and they began to glow with a phosphorescent light. The Devil Fish tightened its grip upon Godzilla, then sent a radioactive charge searing into Godzilla's body. Godzilla roared in pain, his claws closing about one of the Devil Fish's tentacles. Godzilla grunted with the effort as he tore the tentacle's suckers from his flesh and raised the writhing, whip-like limb upward toward his mouth.  
  
It was the Devil Fish's turn to feel agony as Godzilla's powerful jaws closed about the tentacle, severing the limb from the mutant octopus' body. The Devil Fish pulled away from Godzilla, retreating back into the water. Godzilla roared at the fleeing monster and then dived after it. The chase was on once more.  
  
'Made any progress?' the oily voice of CCI chief Katagiri inquired as the dark suited official entered the room within the CCI facility. Interpol agent Murakoshi looked up from the stack of papers he had been perusing. On the other side of the table, aged German scientist Dr. Reisendorf continued to read the reports.  
  
'I would be able to answer that better if I knew what I was looking for,' Murakoshi answered, trying to rub some of tension out of his neck.  
  
'This was your idea,' pointed out Katagiri. 'You are the one who is so convinced that Frankenstein is alive and still in Japan.'  
  
'Dr. Reisendorf says that Frankenstein is a very vindictive man,' Murakoshi said. 'If Godzilla injured him as severely as the Red Bamboo terrorists have said, then he is going to stay close until he has destroyed the monster.'  
  
'As far as I know, no mad scientists have made an attempt on Godzilla's life lately,' sneered Katagiri. 'And I don't see how anything like that is going to turn up in those police reports.'  
  
'No,' stated Dr. Reisendorf, 'but something else might. If Dr. Frankenstein is still in this country, then he must somehow have equipped himself with a laboratory and medical equipment. I have been looking for any reports of stolen surgical supplies. Also, I fear, any instances of bodies stolen from morgues or cemeteries.'  
  
'We have found a few things that are possible leads,' Murakoshi added, 'and some of your Special Police are already looking into them.'  
  
'Do you think that they will find him?' Katagiri said. Whatever answer Murakoshi was formulating was cut off by Dr. Reisendorf's excited exclamation.  
  
'I think that I have found something!' the old scientist declared. 'Here is a report of a missing German tourist in Osaka.'  
  
'Wasn't there also a German engineer who disappeared in Osaka?' Murakoshi asked, rifling through his stack of reports.  
  
'And also a hospital that was burgled,' Dr. Reisendorf added.  
  
'How do missing Germans tie in with Dr. Frankenstein?' Katagiri asked, not following the conversation.  
  
'You must remember that Heinrich von Frankenstein is, among other things, a Nazi,' Dr. Reisendorf said. 'He may not have worshipped Adolf Hitler like most of those goose-stepping zombies, but there was much in National Socialist philosophy that he did agree with. The first and foremost of these was the Nazi belief in a Master Race and the superiority of the Nordic bloodline.'  
  
'Meaning?' Katagiri inquired.  
  
'Meaning that if Frankenstein was in need of replacing an injured body, he would insist on putting his new form together from the bodies of other Germans,' Murakoshi declared.  
  
'Yes, Gentlemen,' Dr. Reisendorf concluded, 'there can be little doubt. Frankenstein is alive and he is operating somewhere in Osaka!'  
  
'Baron, you can't really intend to release that, that thing upon the world,' protested Dr. Gildor. The two German scientists stood on the beach, the stars obscured by heavy clouds. Behind the two men, a large truck with a long bed idled. Upon the bed of the truck was a large tarp, beneath which something moved.  
  
'Reports say that Godzilla and this Devil Fish will make landfall in Sendai if they stick to their present course,' Heinrich von Frankenstein stated. 'Two uncontrollable beasts thrust upon a defenseless city. Really, Dr. Gildor, how can my Prometheus make matters any worse than they already are? How can a creature firmly under my control be as bad as two rampaging monsters?' Frankenstein lifted the hand radio to his mouth and snarled a command into the radio.  
  
The shape beneath the tarp on the truck began to rise, pulling the obscuring fabric away. It was huge, easily thirty feet tall, its shape that of a man. The head was square and misshapen, the eyes staring dully from the greenish, corpse-like face. The monster strode towards the two men standing on the beach, halting just before them.  
  
'You see, Dr. Gildor?' gloated Frankenstein. 'Completely under my control.' Frankenstein produced a heavy canister and barked another order into the radio. The hulking Prometheus leaned downwards. Frankenstein placed the canister in the monster's hand and commanded Prometheus to swallow the capsule.  
  
'More of the elixir?' gasped Dr. Gildor.  
  
'The last of it, I am afraid,' replied Frankenstein. 'His digestive juices will eat through that canister in a few hours. Then the elixir will begin its work. By the time he swims to Sendai for his rendezvous with Godzilla, my creation will be able to defeat the monster and we shall both have our revenge.'  
  
'But what about the people?' Dr. Gildor demanded.  
  
'Oh, there will be some casualties, I am sure,' Frankenstein remarked. 'But that should hardly concern us.' Frankenstein barked another command in the radio.  
  
The huge monster became ridged, his right arm shooting forward. A harsh, misshapen mouth tried to mimic the words he had been taught, but the croaking growl that emerged was unintelligible. Then, the monster strode into the surf. Dr. Gildor and Dr. Frankenstein watched as Prometheus faded from view.  
  
'I must work on his speech skills,' Frankenstein mused. 'Perhaps when he finishes with Godzilla we will get him on the table again and see if we can't work on that.' Frankenstein let a malevolent look cross his face as he looked at Dr. Gildor. 'Or perhaps he needs a new brain.'  
  
The huge Devil Fish slithered onto the nighttime beach at Sendai, its scaly skin glistening wetly in the lights of the city. The powerful, tentacled beast lashed out at the JSDF tanks and missile launchers that had been formed up to halt its advance, diverted from the massive buildup of troops preparing for the seemingly inevitable arrival of the devil-beast Bagan in the south of Japan. These were very much second-string forces, new recruits using old and out-dated equipment. Many of the weapons did not even begin firing until after the giant octopus had begun its assault. By the time the Devil Fish began to claim serious casualties from the JSDF forces, the bulk of the formation had collapsed into a chaotic retreat, soldiers abandoning their vehicles to scramble into the streets of the city, tanks and missile launchers ramming into each other in their desperate attempts to escape.  
  
The Devil Fish paid all of this little attention, its tentacles lashing out in every direction to deliver a surge of radiation to anything that moved. The scaly, mollusk-like monster slithered ever deeper into the city, heedless of the few shells and missiles that impacted harmlessly against its body. No, the weapons of man could not harm it. But there was something that could. The Devil Fish could still feel the agony of its missing tentacle, and its wicked primitive mind could sense the tell-tale aura of radiation that heralded the coming of his pursuer.  
  
Godzilla's head and shoulders emerged from the bay, his roar splitting the sky. Godzilla lost no time making his way to land, eager to come to grips with his enemy. Twice now, the Devil Fish had escaped him. It would not do so again.  
  
Godzilla blasted a building that loomed above the huge octopus, showering the Devil Fish in rubble and debris. The reptile had learned that the mollusk was immune to his radioactive flame, so Godzilla no longer attempted to strike the Devil Fish. But to bury the beast alive in a mound of debris was another thing.  
  
The Devil Fish squirmed away from the shower of stone and concrete, its body bruised and battered. The octopus' gills noisily puckered, announcing its anger to Godzilla. The octopus slithered back towards his attacker, no longer content to play the part of the prey. It was time for Godzilla and the Devil Fish to battle once more. And this time, only one would survive. 


	5. IV - The Evil of Frankenstein

Frankenstein Has Risen From the Grave  
  
By C. L. Werner  
  
Chapter IV:  
  
The Evil of Frankenstein  
  
From the shadows, something watched as Godzilla and the deadly Devil Fish closed upon one another. The huge construct, its form crafted from parts stolen from a dozen murdered men, curled its greenish lip in a snarl as its keen eyes focused upon the black-scaled figure of Godzilla. The effects of Frankenstein's strange atomic elixir, the savage brutality of his brain surgery, the hideous shape that now housed it, all of these had not removed the one thought that now consumed the brain within the skull of Prometheus.  
  
Godzilla would die.  
  
The huge human-like monster closed his hands upon the massive, crude axe he had crafted from the rotting hull of a sunken battleship, itself a past victim of the elder Godzilla. The monster's face split into a grotesque leer as he imagined plunging the weapon into Godzilla's body and pulling out the reptile's heart. The voice of his creator, buzzing in the ear of the fifty-meter giant, urged Prometheus to remain calm, to wait until Godzilla was fully distracted by the Devil Fish. Then, from the shadows, like a mammoth assassin, Prometheus would strike.  
  
Godzilla snarled, his lip curling in rage. By way of response, the Devil Fish noisily puckered its gills. The two atomic monstrosities advanced, crushing automobiles and cracking pavement beneath their awesome masses as they moved. Godzilla sent another sheet of atomic destruction blasting into a towering building, showering the hideous mollusk in rubble and glass. Still, the Devil Fish continued to slither towards him.  
  
Godzilla turned on the monster, lashing the Devil Fish with his powerful tail. The first blow struck the horrible octopus creature squarely in the head, pushing its boneless mass inwards. The Devil Fish squirmed in pain, partially stunned by the violent blow. Again, Godzilla's tail lashed out, but this time the Devil Fish was ready for the attack. Four of the monster's arms gripped the ground, the other four tensed. The Devil Fish waited until Godzilla's tail was nearly upon him, then it lashed out with its own assault. The arms shot forward, catching Godzilla's tail, arresting its downward motion. The tentacles whipped about Godzilla's limb, digging into the scaly flesh with razor-sharp suckers. Radioactive blood began to ooze from the tail and Godzilla let loose with a cry of pain.  
  
The reptile exerted his immense strength, pulling his tail back, ripping the Devil Fish from its anchorage in the debris-laden street. The huge octopus shot forward along with the tail. Surprised and upset by the unexpected maneuver, the Devil Fish released its grip on Godzilla, crashing into the side of a warehouse, rubble crashing into its scaly body, burying it from site.  
  
Godzilla's eyes narrowed, studying the unmoving tentacles protruding from the pile of ruined masonry and twisted steel. A low snarl rumbled from his chest. His eyes fixed upon the tentacles, Godzilla stepped forward, intending to make certain of his enemy's demise. Godzilla kicked a clawed foot at the nearest of the tentacles. The massive snake-like appendage flopped lifelessly. Godzilla snarled again, stomping on the tentacle this time. Thin, greasy blood exploded from the ruptured tentacle, even as seven more exploded from the pile of rubble and wrapped about Godzilla's body.  
  
The Devil Fish snapped its beak with savage wrath, eager to taste the flesh of this creature that had caused it so much pain. It did not relate the strange changes wrought upon its body to its earlier sampling of Godzilla's flesh, nor could it wonder what more of the wondrous cellular material would do to it. No, it was the far more basic motive of survival that moved the mollusk as its tentacles dug into Godzilla's skin.  
  
A great fleshy mass wrapped around Godzilla's throat, even as a second tentacle stifled the roar bellowing from Godzilla's mouth by lashing around the monster's fanged muzzle, pulling the reptile's jaws closed. Slowly, like enormous pythons, the tentacles began to constrict.  
  
Murakoshi stood in the parking garage beneath Osaka police headquarters. Teams of Special Police, answerable to the CCI, were busily securing the velcro straps of their armored vests or performing last minute ammo checks for their massive automatic rifles and portable flame guns. It had taken several hours since Murakoshi and Kataguri's arrival in Osaka to reach this point. A minor level Yakuza member had been broken after hours of interrogation. The Osaka detective who had conducted the interrogation suspected that the Yakuza had always intended to give up Frankenstein's location, their connection to the renegade Nazi was both tenuous and dangerous for them.  
  
Now, with thirty of the most highly trained police in all of Japan, the time had come to strike. Murakoshi double-checked the clip in his own automatic. One way or another, the evil of Heinrich von Frankenstein was about to come to an end.  
  
'Remember,' Kataguri was speaking, addressing the Special Police troops, 'the CCI wants Frankenstein alive. Dr. Gildor, if he is still alive, is also to be taken unharmed. We do not know if he is Frankenstein's accomplice or his prisoner, but either way the information he may now possess is vital.' Kataguri paused, letting his voice drip to a lower octave. 'Any officer who causes the death of either of these men will be answerable to me.'  
  
Murakoshi snorted, again examining his firearm. The chief of the CCI could say what he liked, if it came to a choice between allowing Frankenstein to escape or gunning him down, the INTERPOL agent would not hesitate.  
  
Godzilla's vision began to blur as the Devil Fish's tentacles continued to choke off his breath. The great reptile toppled, rolling across the ground, desperate to detach the mollusk and its constricting, biting tentacles from his body. Rubble, twisted girders and jagged blocks of concrete stabbed into the giant octopus' flesh, causing greasy black blood to seep from scores of wounds. Yet still, the Devil Fish maintained its strangle hold.  
  
Godzilla rose uneasily to his feet, finding the action difficult with the Devil Fish's dead weight dragging him down. He had been unable to dislodge the mutant beast, but his action had not been completely fruitless. One of the Devil Fish's tentacles wrapped around Godzilla's arm had been momentarily withdrawn, reacting to some particularly sharp piece of rubble. Godzilla's free arm closed about the retreating tentacle. His vision fading into blackness, Godzilla began to strain, tugging and pulling at the Devil Fish's whip-like limb.  
  
Black-blood fountained into the air as the tentacle came away in Godzilla's claw. Godzilla let the limb fall to the street, its lingering life making it squirm and writhe mindlessly. The reptile had torn the limb from the Devil Fish's scaly body, ripping it out by the roots, leaving a gaping hole in the creature's central mass.  
  
The Devil Fish let out a gurgling shriek of agony, and dropped away from Godzilla in a spasm of pain, its constricting tentacles withdrawing almost instantly. The maimed octopus began to slither away, squirting a dark inky substance that pooled in the street, useless in the open air.  
  
Godzilla glared at the fleeing Devil Fish, a snarl coming from his freed mouth. Dorsal plates on Godzilla's back began to glow with silvery light. A beam of atomic annihilation streamed from Godzilla's fanged jaws, blasting across the debris-strewn battlefield.  
  
The Devil Fish could sense the incoming blast of nuclear radiation, its hunger rekindled. The Devil Fish paused, awaiting the incoming, life-giving warmth. It was the last mistake in its long, brutal existence. Godzilla did not direct his fire against the Devil Fish as a whole. Instead he focused the flame on a very specific point on the monster's horned body. The human-like eyes of the octopus grew wide with horror as the stream of atomic flame struck the weeping wound. The tremendous energy streamed into the wound, searing into the octopus' vulnerable innards, circumventing the Devil Fish's resistant hide. Like a mammoth tick, the Devil Fish burst, bathing the battlefield in rubbery flesh and black, runny blood.  
  
Godzilla roared in triumph, bellowing his victory to the cloudless sky.  
  
'Now,' Heinrich von Frankenstein hissed into a radio transmitter from his hidden lab in Osaka.  
  
The giant shape detached itself from the shadows of a towering hotel, racing across the streets, his mammoth stride carrying him the length of a football field with every jogging step. Prometheus ran at Godzilla, the patchwork abomination reaching the monster before the reptile was even aware of this new enemy advancing upon him from behind. Prometheus let a savage, feral growl crawl from his lips as he raised his primitive weapon.  
  
The axe blade sank into Godzilla's back, spearing downwards between the outer and middle rows of dorsal plates. Godzilla's triumphant roar became a scream as the hunk of rusting metal speared downwards, erupting from the center of the huge monster's scaly chest. Prometheus pressed downwards with his blade, snarling with a simulation of his master's hate, driving the weapon still deeper.  
  
Boiling radioactive blood bubbled from the savage wound. Prometheus leaned forward, snarling his wrath into Godzilla's ear, pushing the penetrating metal still further into Godzilla's body. Godzilla turned his head, despite the agony filling him, trying to see this new threat, trying to bring his terrible atomic ray to bear upon his attacker. Prometheus remained behind Godzilla, straddling the monster's tail, pressed against his dorsal plates, one arm locked about the haft of his crude axe, the other circling Godzilla's chest, providing the monster with his deadly leverage. Godzilla sent a blast of blue flame searing from his jaws, but could not turn his head far enough to strike the corpse-like beast.  
  
A hissed command in the monster's ear made Prometheus twist his patch-work lip in a feral leer. The monster released his grip upon Godzilla, bringing the arm upwards and smashing the meaty fist into Godzilla's jaw, shattering teeth and causing the huge reptile to stagger. Prometheus managed to maintain a hold of Godzilla as the atomic dragon reeled, then brought both hands upwards and leveled a terrible double fisted blow to the back of Godzilla's neck. Godzilla dropped from the haymaker, pitching forward into the dust and rubble. Prometheus snarled again, ripping the crude axe from Godzilla's body.  
  
Some faint remnant of Goke's mind knew what to do now. The monster's face split in a wicked grin as he raised the axe to deliver the first butchering blow.  
  
'It will be very soon now,' Heinrich von Frankenstein gloated in the darkness. He turned an arrogant eye to Dr. Johann Gildor. The younger scientist was pale, somewhat aghast at what was unfolding far away in Sapporo. 'You see, with me guiding my Prometheus, there is nothing that crude beast can do. Its brute strength is no match for the intellect of genius!'  
  
Suddenly, a small light flickered from a bank of machinery. Dr. Gildor raced over to the machine.  
  
'Herr Doktor,' Dr. Gildor gasped. 'There are intruders in the warehouse!'  
  
Frankenstein's eyes became still more glacial and lifeless. 'It seems my trust in the Osaka Yakuza was ill-placed. I should have known better than to have expected any of these yellow monkeys to keep faith with me.' The wicked Nazi renegade's voice dropped into a sinister hiss. 'When I have finished with Godzilla, I shall make Osaka and object lesson to the rest of the world, an open grave for those who would preach the equality of hominids.'  
  
'Herr Doktor,' Gildor said, gripping Frankenstein's arm. 'We must escape! If they catch you...'  
  
Frankenstein angrily shook Gildor's hand from his arm. 'Evacuate? In our moment of triumph?' The mad scientist let a cunning look crawl across his face. 'Fear not, they shall not get you. I am very protective of my assistants. But for now,' Frankenstein returned his attention to the radio transmitter, 'I must see to the final dissolution of Godzilla.'  
  
Prometheus let a low snarl echo across the battlefield. Downwards came the scrap-metal blade, descending toward the neck of the great beast lying prone below the monster's feet. The giant corpse towered over Godzilla's body, like a colossus, a gargantuan headsman. First Godzilla's head, then the rest of the enormous beast. The creation of Dr. Frankenstein was reveling in such butchery.  
  
But even as the axe stroke began, there was a stir of motion in the great black carcass at Prometheus' feet. A glow built about the dorsal plates, a glow that quickly became something more, a fiery wave of unstoppable, undirected atomic fury, an irresistible nuclear pulse. The wave of power lifted the giant corpse from his feet, flinging him high into the air. The scrap-metal axe buckled and warped in the wave of power, its surface bubbling before the blast of power. Prometheus was hurled nearly twenty city blocks, crashing into an apartment building, his singed, charred and blackened cadaverous flesh sending streams of foul black smoke slithering into the air.  
  
Godzilla slowly stood, turning towards the distant Prometheus. By ambush and sneak attack the giant had caused Godzilla incredible pain, nearly succeeded in killing the great reptile. But the monster had failed. He had only injured Godzilla, only fueled the beast's fury with agony. For to Godzilla, pain equaled power. And that power was now focused upon the smoking giant sprawled among the ruins of Osaka.  
  
A loud roar bellowed from Godzilla's throat, dull blue light played about his dorsal plates.  
  
'No!' screamed Heinrich von Frankenstein. 'I will not be denied! Rise Prometheus! Pick up your filthy carcass and take cover! Lure the animal to you, then strike!'  
  
Dr. Gildor cast a nervous glance at his mentor, then a second look at the ceiling. The sound of heavy boots stomping through the warehouse overhead could be heard. Again, the young German scientist seized the arm of the Nazi.  
  
'We must leave now, Herr Doktor!' Gildor cried. Again, Frankenstein brushed him off.  
  
There was a sudden clamor and the heavy steel cover was shifted from the opening to Frankenstein's underground lair. Both men within the room turned to see a Japanese man wearing a gray suit drop into the laboratory. There was a pistol in his hand.  
  
'Don't move!' the agent shouted. 'INTERPOL! You are under arrest!'  
  
Dr. Gildor backed away from Frankenstein, raising his hands to express that he represented no threat. Murakoshi refocused his attention on the seated Nazi.  
  
'Heinrich von Frankenstein,' the INTERPOL agent said 'if you would please rise and step away from that machinery.'  
  
'So, you have found me,' the Nazi scientist said emotionlessly, making no move to rise. 'And what are you going to do with me, my little yellow monkey?'  
  
'You will stand trial for crimes against humanity, Herr Doktor,' Murakoshi replied, refusing to allow himself to be goaded by the villain.  
  
'Will I?' Frankenstein allowed himself to laugh. 'Will I really? Do you truly think they will hang me? Do you think anyone really cares about some human cattle who advanced the cause of science fifty years ago? Do you think they will care enough to deny themselves the secrets I possess?' Frankenstein let a cunning look return to his hawkish features. He cast a sideways glance at Dr. Gildor. 'I, and I alone.'  
  
Two shots echoed through the subterranean lab almost as one. Before Murakoshi could react, the Nazi had lifted a short-barreled Luger from behind his radio equipment. The Nazi snapped off a single shot before Murakoshi sent a bullet crashing into Frankenstein's arm, making the evil scientist drop his weapon. Lying face down on the floor, a pool of blood slowly spread from the wound in the center of Dr. Gildor's head.  
  
Murakoshi stepped forward, pulling Frankenstein to his feet. Both men looked at the corpse of Dr. Gildor.  
  
'He knew too much for my own good,' the German explained. 'With my late lamented assistant still alive, it is possible that there would be those who would not find me as essential as they might. But now...' Frankenstein grinned at Murakoshi. 'They will not hang the man who can give the great and the good immortality.'  
  
'You will not escape justice,' Murakoshi said, but there was a note of uncertainty in his voice. Frankenstein laughed.  
  
'Think what you may,' the Nazi gestured to the ladder. 'Shall we ascend and let your government begin its little charade?'  
  
Godzilla blasted the gray-concrete face of an apartment building into a molten ruin, pushing the building's corpse to the street with his black-taloned hands. The giant reptile let a shriek of wrath and aggravation echo, swinging his tail and battering another supporting wall away. Entire city blocks had been ravaged by Godzilla as he angrily stalked the lurking Prometheus. The giant had retreated from Godzilla, keeping the buildings of the city between himself and the atomic juggernaut, appearing only at brief intervals to hurls boulders torn from the asphalt at Godzilla's scaly head.  
  
Prometheus crouched behind a towering parking facility, its decks nearly devoid of cars. The monster had been instructed to keep Godzilla at a distance by his master, to avoid the reptile's claws and fangs until Heinrich von Frankenstein determined a way to kill the beast. But the directing voice of his master had become silent and Prometheus was growing eager to finish the fight. As Godzilla strode nearby, the giant corpse-hands of Prometheus reached into the superstructure of the garage and tore two massive steel support beams from their concrete housings.  
  
The sound of the parking facility crumbling into debris caused Godzilla to spin around. Already, Prometheus was leaping from the cloud of dust. As the giant saw Godzilla turn, a snarl split his hideous face. Godzilla sent a stream of blue fire searing at the oncoming attacker. The blast caught Prometheus in the arm, scorching the limb from his patchwork body. The blackened mass of flesh spun into the air, crashing into a gas station some blocks away.  
  
Then the monster was upon Godzilla. With a savage cry, the monster struck Godzilla with his remaining hand, stabbing the reptile in the shoulder with the long steel support beam. The metal sank into Godzilla's flesh, punching through the scales like a nail driven into leather. Godzilla bellowed in pain, tearing at the huge giant's chest with his claws, gouging deep wounds in Prometheus' flesh. The monster replied by bringing his knee smashing into Godzilla's ribs.  
  
The two huge brutes grappled, struggling against one another, the patchwork graveyard horror and the primordial nuclear behemoth. At length, it was the atomic behemoth that gained the upper hand. Godzilla gripped Prometheus about the chest, crushing the monster to his body just as the Devil Fish had done to his own reptilian form. Stolen bones snapped and groaned under the pressure of Godzilla's grip and Prometheus struggled to escape the deadly embrace, snarling in wrath and desperation.  
  
Godzilla leered down into the face of his captive, slowly opening his jaws. Golden light flashed from Godzilla's mouth, blasting into the face of Prometheus. The monster's head disappeared in the golden brilliance as the wave of destructive fire spewed forth from Godzilla's innards. For the better part of a minute, Godzilla let the deadly wave of nuclear power emerge from his body. The creature held in his arms grew slack, but still the stream of obliteration continued. At last, Godzilla closed his powerful jaws. From the body in his arms, there now came no sign of life, indeed, where the head of Prometheus had been there was now only a smoldering scar. Godzilla let the rest of the massive carcass fall to the street.  
  
His wounds already beginning to heal, the monster king turned from the rubble of Sapporo. He paused for an instant on the edge of the bay, as though pondering whether to return, to reenter the ground he had fought so hard upon. A terrible roar echoed into the suburbs, causing those just emerging from their shelters to scatter back into their burrows.  
  
But it was a cry of triumph and parting. Godzilla slowly sank beneath the cool waters, his powerful tail propelling him through the darkness. Godzilla had seen enough of Japan for today. 


End file.
